Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Hong Kong Commercial Daily

The Hong Kong Commercial Daily is a business-oriented newspaper, published in broadsheet format. Established in 1952, it was the first financial newspaper in the Chinese language, with its electronic format available on the Internet. It is one of the few newspapers authorized by the Hong Kong to publicize legal announcements, and also the only Hong Kong newspaper allowed to be circulated freely in mainland China. With a branch office in Shenzhen, it has the largest circulation among Hong Kong newspapers in China.

History

Establishment

The ''HKCD'' was founded on 11 October, 1952. The first issue was published on a Saturday with the selling price of only HK $0.10. In the foreword of the newspaper's launch, the paper claimed to aim at serving as the voice of the local Hong Kong commerce as, "everything to consider the Hong Kong people, everything to serve the local commerce". The paper aimed at candour and accuracy, and a focus on worldwide economies, especially in Hong Kong and China, in order to inform merchants and businessmen on the ever-changing economies around the world. In the earliest publications, the newspaper contained also the latest horse racing news from Happy Valley, Hong Kong, and on
weekends, columns and serial short stories with pictures were also published for the entertainment of the readers.

In the 70s

In the early 70s, the government asked ''HKCD'' to stop publishing its horse and dog-racing page, so ,as not to promote capitalism. The disappearance of those popular topics led to a severe decline in its at that time.

In the 80s

In December 1989, its largest shareholding went to the Joint Publishing Company Limited at the price of 160 million Hong Kong dollars.

In the 90s

In 1995, ''HKCD'' co-operated with the mainland publishing companies to co-publish its special mainland version. This helped in building up its news network and expanding its mainland newspaper market. Since 1996, its electronic version has been available on the internet.

In 2005

In May 2005, the paper was upgraded. Its standard selling price was $3 Hong Kong dollars within Hong Kong and overseas countries. In Mainland China, it is sold at $3RMB within Guandong Provinces and $5 RMB in other provinces.
The new version of the paper emphasizes news tailor-made for investors and business executives mostly from Hong Kong and the Pearl River Delta Economic Regions. It mainly focuses on economic issues so as to facilitate business between Hong Kong and China. The intention of the paper is to serve as a bridge, connecting both sides of the border. The content is more diversified. It contains the latest horse racing information, sports news, focusing on soccer and basketball, entertainment news and Hong Kong tourist information in a section called "Tour in Hong Kong” .

Contents

A typical edition contains about 30 pages. The largest the sections are:

News

*News highlights

*China News

*Hong Kong News

*World News

Business

*The Stock and Property market of China
*Analysis of oil prices, stock markets in Hong Kong, China and the world
*Public announcements and disclosure of revenue of companies in Hong Kong and China

Property

*Analysis of property market and investment opportunities in Hong Kong and China
*Latest Development of Chinese provinces

Special Features

* Interviews - special features on successful and outstanding businessmen in Hong Kong and China

Sports

* Horse Racing news
* World news

Leisure

*Food and restaurants
*Travel in China
*Book review

Techonology

*A special issue called '' I.T.Net '' is published every Wednesday along with the newspaper.

Editor

Cheng Xi Tian

Mr. Cheng Xi Tian is the current chief editor of the ''HKCD''. Cheng was born on ''8th February, 1941'' in Shanghai. Before he became the Chief Editor and Deputy of the ''HKCD'', Cheng had been the editor of ''Shenzhen Publishing Group''. At present he is also a part-time professor in Renmin University of China and Wuhan University. He is a graduate from journalism of Renmin University of Chinain 1966 and has been working in the field of journalism for more than thirty years. Since he has written a number of newsletters, argumentative writings, reports, biography and prose etc, he was given the title "Unique Journalist" by Deng Xiao Ping in ''1992''. On ''26th March, 1992'', Cheng’s Chinese publication 《东方风来满眼春》highlights the success of his career. This publication has won a lot of distinguished awards in the press media of mainland China, e.g. "The first award of Chinese News" , "Speical Price of Guangdong News" , etc.. In 2000, he was awarded the most honorable prize in the press in mainland .

Board

Chairman and CEO

Huang Yang Lue

Mr Huang Yang Lue is currently the Chairman of the Board of Directors as well as the CEO of The HKCD. He was born in Suwen, Guangdong and graduated from Zhongshan Universityin 1982. Immediately after his graduation, he entered the Xinhua News Agency in the Guangdong branch, where he worked as a reporter, assistant director and vice-president. He also is a part-time Professor at the Business School of Jinan University. In September 2002, he was appointed head of the Shenzhen News Group.

Readership

Target reader groups

The target reader groups include investors and business executives in both China and Hong Kong, mainly from the Pearl River Delta and especially the Special Economic Zones. Employees of some Hong Kong which have based their businesses in mainland China, and -minded individuals with an interest in the HKSAR- relation, are also an important target group. Its worldwide readership includes people from Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, the USA, Canada, Australia, , Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, etc..

Ranking by readers

According to a survey done by the Department of Journalism and Communication, Chinese University of Hong Kong, the credibility of HKCD is ranked 23rd among the media in Hong Kong, scoring 4.9, while the most credible is the Hong Kong Economic Journal.

Readers' perception

RTHK and Breakthrough have conducted surveys and questionnaires for Hong Kong readers and journalists in Year 1998 and 2001 respectively. The findings reflect the credibility, political stance and popularity of a number of Hong Kong newspaper among the public.

The result of the surveys has been shown in the diagram.

Publication

Installments

In addition to reporting up-to-date business and financial issues, it also contains intellectual . For example, many of the martial arts novels written by Jinyong from the 1950s like "''The Sword Stained With Royal Blood''"《碧血劍》in 1956, ''The Legend of the Condor Heroes''"《射鵰英雄傳》in 1957 etc, were published as installments in the ''Hong Kong Commercial Daily''.

Books

''HKCD'' also publishes various kinds of books, while most are in Chinese, including "''The Last episode of Ten Colonels''"《十大元帥大結局》、"''The Mystery of Xiaoshan''"《韶山之謎》、"''The Last 28 days of Cultural Revolution''"《文革最后的28天》、"''Horror and Anti-horror''"《恐怖與反恐怖》、"''Human and Ghost''"《人鬼神》、"''Force of China''"《中國力量》. Many are on current political and economic issues. For its 30th anniversary in 1982 it published a book called "Knowledge of living" with useful information on health care, electrical appliances and useful telephone numbers in Hong Kong and Guangzhou etc.. Some feature stories and articles in the newspaper are later collected and published as books.

Website

The ''HKCD'' website was launched in 1996. It is written in both Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese characters. The news is updated at midnight, before publication of the paper. People from all over the world can access freely the on-line news about Hong Kong, Mainland China and the world . Past news and feaures are accessible through a searchable archive.